


Cherry Road

by thatoldbroad



Series: Cherry Road [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prostitution, Switching, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-06 06:02:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14050506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatoldbroad/pseuds/thatoldbroad
Summary: Formerly titled: (Not A) Missed ConnectionShiro encounters him on a sleepless night while driving aimlessly, mindlessly, and he’s a lone figure walking briskly in an area of town that scorns the activity even in daylight. He is slim, compact, and the hunch in his shoulders stirs a long dormant hunger low in Shiro’s belly.





	1. Chapter 1

Shiro encounters him on a sleepless night while driving aimlessly, mindlessly, and he’s a lone figure walking briskly in an area of town that scorns the activity even in daylight. He is slim, compact, and the hunch in his shoulders stirs a long dormant hunger low in Shiro’s belly. He could ignore it. He should. Instead, he trails the kid - and he is a kid, Shiro confirms when he’s closer - is either uncaring or oblivious because he doesn’t accelerate his pace, shows no sign that he notices Shiro until Shiro abruptly turns right and his SUV comes to a hard stop at the corner, barricading the crosswalk. The kid jerks back in surprise - oblivious, then.

Shiro half expects him to be turned back or headed in a different direction by the time Shiro’s rolled down the window, but the kid is unmoved where he stands, a wary, but expectant expression on his face. “How much?” Shiro asks. 

The kid shakes his head, rejection swift. And Shiro wonders if he was mistaken, whether the too tight cut of his jeans is merely a fashion preference, or a consequence of practicality - a food-first philosophy for the frugal by necessity. But then a gust of wind whips the kid’s hair in his face and he shivers, reminding Shiro that he’s wearing only a t-shirt. Low in the neck, it exposes his collarbone and when he leans in to peer at Shiro, a smattering of bruises blossoms starkly under the streetlight, and, really, it’s inconceivable that they could mean anything else. 

“I’m done for the night,” the kid says. “You can find me on Cherry Road tomorrow, by the Ranch motel.”

“You don’t look like you can afford to turn down a customer.”

The kid sighs. “Look, man - ”

“Five hundred,” Shiro interrupts. “One hour, not including the ride.” The kid’s eyes widen, his shock evident. But disbelief is replaced quickly by a look that’s savvy, calculating, no doubt considering what Shiro plans to do with him - to him - for that price. And weighing whether it’s worth the cost. 

The kid leans back into the shadows and his face becomes unreadable. He nods.

_

 

The kid is silent for the duration of the ride, speaking only once to answer, “Keith,” when Shiro asks for his name. They stop at a motel that charges hourly rates and the stretch of silence continues as they walk across the lot.

The room, as Shiro expected, is shabby. The smell of smoke and an earthiness pervades it, and the dim lighting can’t camouflage the stains on the carpeting and the sheets. But none of it matters to Shiro. He shakes his head when Keith moves toward the bed; they won’t be using it.

“Okay,” Keith says slowly. “So, where - how do you want me?”

“Undressed, to start with,” Shiro answers, stripping off his coat - and only his coat. And when it becomes apparent to Keith, he shrugs, but doesn’t comment. His frank acceptance is refreshing. Keith sheds his own clothing quickly, efficiently. After, he stands loosely with his arms by his sides, and if he feels any bit of modesty, he hides it well.

He’s beautiful, Shiro concludes. Almost ethereal, if not for the low simmering hostility he projects. And it’s that edge that makes him dangerous, irresistible, provoking a desire to hurt, or to control, to compel him to submit. And at the thought of Keith on his knees, Shiro’s cock hardens. But not tonight. Tonight, he has other plans. He walks Keith to a wall, turns him. “Arms up - spread them wider, yes, like that.”

Shiro is nearly a head taller and Keith fits neatly under him, against him, his naked back pressed to Shiro’s covered chest. Shiro breathes in his scent, nosing at his neck, behind his ear. He smells used. “You’re dirty,” Shiro murmurs, unsurprised when a drag of his finger along the cleft of Keith’s ass produces white flakes.

Keith laughs. “I _am_ a whore.”

“Yes,” Shiro says. He unzips, pulls out his cock, and slides on a condom. The head of it easily breaches Keith and Shiro enjoys the startled gasp it elicits.“You are.”

But Shiro moves slowly, dragging only the tip, in and out, aware that even a well-used prostitute will have to adjust to his wide girth. And judging by the tremor that suddenly overtakes Keith’s body - a reaction that he obviously attempts to suppress - he’ll require a little help. Shiro’s hands roam his body in search of sensitive places, and though a caress at his neck provokes a quiet moan, it’s incomparable to the violent arch of his back and the wounded sound he makes when Shiro thumbs his nipples. 

“You like that,” Shiro says, pleased. He continues stroking Keith’s nipples. “Can you come from this alone? Look at you - I bet you can. I’m betting you _have_. You want my mouth, don’t you? You’re probably aching for it. Do you like them licked? Like this - ” His tongue flicks at Keith’s neck. “Or sucked?” Shiro’s mouth closes over an earlier bruise and suckles until Keith is whimpering. “Maybe you like them bitten?” And Shiro’s teeth nip an earlobe at the same time as he pinches a nub, but Keith bucks against him and goes rigid. Shiro releases him. “No, no teeth, then. Just tongue, circling round and round - ” and round and round his thumbs mimic until Keith is loose and accommodating and gives easily to a complete penetration. 

Shiro stares at where they’re joined. Keith is tiny and yet - Shiro touches the reddened rim of Keith’s hole, stretched impossibly around Shiro’s cock. A shift in angle elicits another startled gasp, but not from pain, and Shiro fucks into him hard. Shiro fucks him and fucks him until Keith is a writhing mess, his head hanging low between his arms, and the noises spill from him steadily and recklessly.

“Shit,” Shiro shouts when he comes - moments after Keith - and punches the wall above Keith’s head. Keith collapses against it and Shiro against Keith, and they breathe in tandem, labored and patchy. 

“Time?” Keith mumbles.

Shiro looks at his watch. “Five minutes left.”

“Blow job?”

“Nah.” Shiro reaches down and grips Keith’s cock. He toys with it until Keith jerks helplessly against him, too sensitized.

_

 

“Nice doing business with you,” Keith says, as they exit the motel room. He extends a hand. Amused, Shiro accepts it and shakes it vigorously. 

“Same,” Shiro says. He tips his head in the direction of his SUV. “Need a ride?”

And though the temperature has dropped and he’s shivering in his jeans and t-shirt, Keith shakes his head. “I’m good.”

“Suit yourself.”

Shiro watches him saunter away, without a single look backward. Minutes later, after trailing Keith from a safe distance, a yellow cab pulls over and Keith gets in. _Good,_ Shiro thinks. Good.


	2. Chapter 2

A man of unlimited income has unlimited choices, and if Shiro chose to, he could plaster every major city in green and decorate it in cash-spun confetti. He could, if he wanted, wallpaper each of his five mansions in the continental U.S. in fifties and hundreds, the three villas in Europe, a country home in South America, and two ex-pat villages in Asia and Africa - and still have enough left to feed a starving nation for a year (longer). 

He could lease a high-end escort and keep him on retainer indefinitely - hell, he could buy the escort _and_ the company he works for, and have a boy at his beck and call whenever he wanted. He could. He should. So Shiro has been telling himself for the umpteenth time, like a song playing on a loop. But it’s like reasoning with a toddler. Logic says you shouldn’t insert a metal fork in an electrical socket, and logic is telling Shiro that a man of his wealth and status should be aiming for caviar-level, prime-grade ass and _not_ heading toward Cherry Road, by the Ranch motel, because Keith is low-budget like the Ranch motel.

But Shiro is like a toddler with a metal fork, too willful for his own sake, and the want beats louder, an incessant tattoo on his brain: _Keith Keith Keith_. And, _fuck logic_.

_

 

Shiro is idling by a bus shelter, drumming his fingers against the dashboard in frustration. Keith isn’t on the strip of Cherry Road within a half mile of the Ranch motel that’s populated by the other rent boys. He could wait, though he never waits, never _has_ to, and he hates waiting. And maybe he won’t - a gangly, brown-haired boy is approaching the SUV, but in the millisecond it takes Shiro to decide that he would suffice as a substitute (and just as quickly decide that no, no he wouldn’t), Keith shows up as an imprint in his rearview mirror, like an apparition. He’s heading for the strip, a stocky man in a flannel shirt not far behind him. The man turns at an intersection and squeezes into a rusting pick-up. Keith stops two blocks away, slouches against a lamppost, and aggressively rubs his mouth. He spits once, twice, then gathers himself into a position that’s more inviting. 

Keith scans the strip, eyes landing briefly on the SUV, then skimming away, appearing not to recognize it. In the distance, a mustang roars to life and toward Keith, and Shiro snaps out of his voyeuristic state of passivity and peels away from the curb. The brown-haired boy who was poised at Shiro’s window with a raised fist, about to knock, jumps back. 

“Asshole,” the boy yells, drawing Keith’s attention. Keith’s face is blank at first, then surprise hits it, like a brick sailing through glass. The mustang’s driver, anticipating correctly that Shiro isn’t planning to brake, and a collision would be the consequence if he didn’t, pulls up short of the coveted spot in front of Keith and lets Shiro steal it. The driver flips him off before screeching away.

Keith doesn’t move immediately. He stares at the SUV with a mixture of awe and horror. And when he approaches, finally, he’s cautious, like Shiro is an animal in the wild and Keith is an idiot tourist about to offer him bread crumbs. “Um, hi,” he says, peering into the window. He’s wearing another v-neck shirt that exposes his collarbone and Shiro is hit with a sense of deja vu.

“Hi,” Shiro says.

“Been awhile.”

Twenty-four days to be exact, but Keith doesn’t need to know that. Hell, Shiro wishes _he_ didn’t know that. Instead, he nods.

“What can I do for you?” Keith asks.

“You can give me your rate for the night.”

Keith’s eyes flash disbelief. “At five hundred an hour?”

Shiro laughs. “No. Hell, no. That was a one-time special, courtesy of the dealer of the house.” Shiro points at himself: because he may have money to burn, but he likes to burn it on his terms. “Give me a more reasonable rate.”

“Five hundred an hour seems reasonable by your standards,” Keith shoots back. 

Shiro’s gold Rolex glints under the moonlight; Keith isn’t wrong.

“Let me rephrase: reasonable by _your_ standards.”

And that has Keith pausing. Because even five hundred for a night is probably a stretch. Shiro doubts that Keith will pocket that much by the time he clocks out and uncertainty battles openly on his face. How much is too much? What amount will drive Shiro away and leave Keith standing in the cold, riddled with regret? The answer is no amount, and that Shiro would easily capitulate if Keith insisted on five hundred an hour. So just as Keith opens his mouth to quote a number, and inevitably undersell himself, Shiro cuts the kid a break and says, “Two thousand. Final offer.”

“Two thousand?” Keith says faintly, and it’s likely enough to pay for a month of rent and groceries, with a little extra leftover. Maybe the kid will buy himself a jacket, Shiro muses, taking stock of his shivering, which hasn’t abated at all throughout their negotiation.

After a moment passes and there’s still no answer from Keith, Shiro prods, “Well?”

Keith blinks slowly, as if emerging from a fugue state. “Yeah, okay. Two thousand.” And he hops in.

_

 

They’re driving up an isolated, winding road when Keith asks, “Where are we going?” He’s pitched forward in his seat and looking up at the lone, palatial structure on top of the hill.

“My place.”

Keith’s mouth falls open. “You live in a castle!”

Shiro suppresses a laugh. Not exactly, but - “if you’re referring to acreage, then yes, I suppose I do.”

“Holy shit,” Keith says in the same awed voice. Then his eyes narrow. “You _can_ afford five hundred an hour.” He becomes suddenly petulant and crosses his arms across his chest.

“I never said I couldn’t. But who says you’re worth it?”

“I was the other night.”

“For an hour. And only because I was feeling generous.”

“Whatever.” But his mood shifts quickly to curiosity. “Do you have a butler?”

“You mean an Alfred?” Shiro says, unable to help a smile. At Keith’s puzzled look, he explains, “Bruce Wayne’s butler? You know, Batman?” 

Keith smirks. “Are you saying you’re Batman?”

“No, smartass, I’m saying I don’t have an Alfred. I have people that cook and clean, every few days, and a guy that manages the grounds, but no one permanent onsite.”

“You live alone?”

“I do.”

“What do you do with all that space?”

“What do you think?”

Keith muses for a moment. “Whatever you want?”

Shiro nods. “Whatever I want.”

_

 

It’s like a five-year-old’s first steps into Disneyland the way Keith is instantly captivated by Shiro’s home. He’s hardly past the foyer when he stops, a look of pure wonder on his face as he soaks in the interior: to the left, he sees a majestic, sunken living room ornamented with expensive and rare antiques, the walls covered in Asian art; to the right, he zeroes in on a baby grand in the corner of a less formal sitting area; and at the center, where his gaze lingers longest, are two sets of ornate staircases that spiral to the top floors. The second set, closer to the rear of the house, leads to the South wing, occupied entirely by Shiro’s bedroom.

“What do you think?” Shiro says.

Keith makes a strangled noise. “I-I…” he trails off, swallows hard. “I think you might be Batman.”

_

 

Keith is fascinated by the view from the floor-to-ceiling window in Shiro’s bedroom. It’s a clear night, not a hint of cloud obscuring the stars and Keith is wholly mesmerized by them - and Shiro is mesmerized by Keith. The hunger that had propelled Shiro to snatch Keith from Cherry Road and was distracted briefly by the logistics of getting him here roars back: it _wants_ , and it wants now.

Shiro’s hands are everywhere, at once. Keith is naked in seconds, then he’s on the floor beneath Shiro. He clutches desperately at Shiro’s wrist as Shiro jerks him furiously. It’s a quick, brutal fuck. Keith comes first, howling and spilling hot and sticky over Shiro’s hands. Shiro follows, the succession of Keith’s ass clenching uncontrollably around him destroys him irrevocably.

“Christ,” Keith gasps. “You don’t waste any time.”

“Wouldn’t be a smart investment if I did,” Shiro pants against Keith’s chest. His mouth is inches from a perky, brown nipple. It’s too soon for Shiro, but Keith - Keith is a young man. Shiro lowers his head and licks. 

“Nooooo,” Keith groans, but he’s arching his back, meeting Shiro’s mouth as it descends on the other nipple and closes over it - and thus proving Shiro’s theory: Keith can come from just _this_.

_

 

The patter of water echoes through the bathroom door and fills the bedroom with a soothing soundtrack as Shiro undresses. He changes into loose, cotton pants and a matching short-sleeved shirt that not only exposes his metal arm, but every curve and cut in his biceps and forearm. The outline of his firm, sculpted pectorals is prominent where the shirt clings to his chest.

Shiro knows the impact of his physicality on others and isn’t surprised when Keith emerges from the bathroom, pink and smelling of Shiro’s shampoo and drowning in his bathrobe, and gapes at the sight of him. His gaze lingers on Shiro’s broad chest, then slides to Shiro’s metal arm. His eyes go wide.

“So, you’re not Batman, but a Cyborg?” Keith says jokingly, but there’s a trace of fear in it. He pulls the robe tighter around him.

“It’s a prosthetic.”

“Oh. What happened to your arm?”

A memory tinted in red and of the harsh sound of grinding fills Shiro’s mind, but all he says is, “Accident.”

The prosthetic is custom-made, a genius originated by Shiro and developed by the best minds in science, medicine, and technology. It has since served as the prototype for every other prosthetic on the market, patented down to the tiniest bolt. Shiro's civilian version, and the line of military models fashioned after it, have made him a very, very, _very_ wealthy (wealthier) man. But from the way Keith is staring at it, Shiro may as well have sprouted a second head.

“What does it do?” Keith asks.

“It’s an arm,” Shiro says, exasperated. “It does what an arm normally does. I can hold things open with it, or push things open. I use the fingers at the end of it to pick things up, or reach for items in a cupboard, or scratch in places when I itch. Stir my coffee in the morning. And since I’m naturally right-handed, I prefer to masturbate with it. Or masturbate _you_.”

Keith flushes. “That, uh, y-you used that. On me?”

“Which brings us to the next event of the evening.” Shiro sits on the bed. “Come here.” Keith goes to him, but his steps stutter when he’s within reach. Shiro thinks to coax him through his sudden, strange skittishness, but Shiro is not a patient man. He grabs Keith - with his human arm - and yanks him forward to stand between Shiro’s legs. Shiro raises the metal arm so that it’s in Keith’s line of sight and wiggles his fingers. “I want to put these inside you.”

Keith stiffens. “Are you asking?”

“You can say no.”

“And if I do?”

“I dock your pay.”

“How much?”

“A thousand.”

Keith’s face falls. He looks at Shiro with such naked hurt and betrayal that Shiro almost backpedals. And Shiro is shocked by that instinct. But before he can examine it, Keith recovers. He schools his features to leach all emotion from them, leaving only his normal front of quiet hostility for Shiro to contend with. And Shiro does. “What’s the problem?” Shiro demands. “Don’t tell me you haven’t had things other than dicks and fingers shoved up your ass.”

“I have!” Keith yells, and startles them both by the outburst. He visibly recalibrates and when he speaks again, it’s in a soft, modulated tone. “I have, but I’ve known, or thought I knew - ” He points at Shiro’s arm. “I’ve never seen that before. And the last time - ” Keith doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t have to. 

Because just like that, Shiro gets it. They’re not on even footing. Keith can never be on even footing, not with Shiro, not with any of the johns, no matter the trick or the price. He can never truly call the shots, not when he has a dick up his ass, or when a john decides to blow off the blow job Keith gave him and not pay. But there are expectations. There are presumptions one can make in their context of reality. There _is_ a status quo, and Shiro has upended it, along with any notion of fair exchange or, at least, _expected_ exchange. Because Keith may have done all manner of things in his line of profession and had all sorts of objects shoved inside him, but they are things and objects that his imagination can account for, and Shiro’s metal arm belongs in the category of myth. Like a dragon or the human ability to fly: it requires seeing to be believed. 

And if the last time Keith had something other than a dick or fingers in his ass, has left him as skittish as he is, then he needs to be certain that the thousand dollars Shiro is dangling from him isn’t going to come at the expense of his safety, or dignity, or agency, so that he’s left with less than he started with.

Gently, he places Keith’s hands on his metal arm. “It won’t hurt you,” Shiro says, while encouraging Keith to inspect it, from the joint where his human limb ends and the metal begins, to the crease inside his elbow that reveals a small compartment and a touch sensor that makes Shiro’s arm come to life, vibrating.

“Holy shit,” Keith exclaims.

“You can say no,” Shiro reminds him. “But it - _I_ won’t hurt you. I promise.” 

After a long, long moment, Keith shuts the vibration off, opens the robe, and drags Shiro’s hand down, down between his legs.

_

 

“Wh-wh-why,” Keith starts for the third time and, for the third time, fails to finish. Shiro has three vibrating fingers in his ass, coated in Keith’s cum, and he’s vying for a fifth orgasm. 

The robe Keith is still wearing has fallen to either side of him, surrounding him like a full body halo. Hair is plastered to his forehead and sweat is pooling in the hollow of his throat. Every so often, a tear squeezes past his tightly shut eyes and trickles down the side of his face. He is Shiro’s every fantasy live in HD - no, better - and Shiro wants to keep him like this forever.

Shiro bends down and kisses the inside of Keith’s thigh. “Why what?”

“St-top,” Keith says breathlessly. Shiro stills his fingers, pauses the vibration. He looks at Keith questioningly. “Why does it do that?”

“You mean vibrate?”

Keith nods.

Shiro smiles. “Because.” Then he turns the vibration back on. Keith manages a “you pervert” before Shiro rediscovers his prostate and has his merciless way with it.


	3. Chapter 3

It becomes a routine. Every third Tuesday night, at some point after midnight (or the point at which Shiro is certain sleep is going to evade him) and before Keith trudges home (in or around four-thirty a.m., or before light begins to break apart the gray sky), Shiro parks by the bus shelter on Cherry Road and waits for Keith. There is always a wait for Keith.

Shiro glances down at his watch: eighteen minutes and thirty-six seconds, so far. He reclines back and resumes watching the other boys on the strip. It’s unusually deserted. There are the faces or the bodies he recognizes: the brown-haired boy that he snubbed that first night, which now seems so long ago, and who glares at him the entire time he waits for Keith; the slight blond, slighter even than Keith, leaning against the lamppost, typing on his phone; the muscular boy who fidgets and chain-smokes until a john shows up. There’s the other brown-haired boy, less gangly, crouched on the sidewalk and leaned into the driver’s seat of a Toyota sedan, his body jerking back and forth and leaving nothing of exactly what he’s doing to do the imagination. And a few others mill about, too unremarkable for Shiro to parse individually, but he is certain there is less of them. He wonders if their absence is due to the unusually cold night.

Shiro spares another look at his watch. Another six minutes have passed. It isn’t longer than usual and certainly not the longest he’s waited, but it always feels too long. He hopes it won’t be a repeat of a night several months ago, when Shiro had waited nearly two hours and then Keith had showed up stiff and more bow-legged than even Shiro has left him after a particularly vigorous fuck. The back of his thighs and ass were bruised in the shape of handprints and his briefs were spotted with blood - not a lot, but enough to make Shiro’s stomach turn. And despite Keith insisting that it was consensual, that the john was a regular and _this is our thing_ , and Keith offering to use his mouth instead, Shiro _couldn’t_. He was pissed and he wanted to break the guy’s face, and he would have, if Keith had known where to find him.

They didn’t do anything that night. Shiro bathed him, applied ointment to his injuries, fed him ice cream, and made him promise to never, ever see that john again. Or Shiro _tried_. Keith had smiled, a tiny, secret thing, and Shiro had pretended that it was as good as sealed. 

His eyes flick to the rearview mirror - finally, there’s that familiar hunch, that shock of black hair. In minutes, Keith is at the passenger door and climbing in. As usual, he’s in a t-shirt and jeans, and he’s shivering violently.

“Hey,” Keith says.

“Hey,” Shiro answers. “You’re not wearing a jacket.”

“And _you_ get a cookie for stating the obvious.”

“Don’t grump at me because you’re cold. Why aren’t you in a jacket?”

“Because, as I’ve said to you a hundred times, my business requires me to display the goods in plain sight.” Said as if prostitution were regulated and an inspector would be checking Keith to make sure he was in compliance.

“Except the other boys are in hats and coats. Don’t tell me you can’t afford it. I pay you more than enough.”

Keith snorts. “As if you’d ever let me forget.” But he sinks into the passenger seat, a mild concession, and turns up its built-in heater. He closes his eyes. “Can we stop arguing about this? Please?”

Fine. It’s not as if Shiro can’t find something else to argue about. “It’s freezing tonight.”

“Shiro,” Keith says pleadingly. 

“Let me finish - as I was saying, it’s freezing tonight, is that why there are so fewer of you boys on the strip?”

The question unexpectedly makes Keith go rigid. His eyes fly open, but he looks away instead of at Shiro, which can only mean one thing: he’s debating whether to tell Shiro the truth or obfuscate, and he’s so terrible at the latter that Shiro will inevitably drag the truth out of him, but not until after an interrogation so thorough and excruciating that the Spanish inquisition pales in comparison. And so it’s only a little surprising that Keith opts to tell the truth. 

And the truth - the truth is worse than anything that Shiro could have anticipated. Three boys have been attacked, beaten, left bleeding and nearly dead. All raped. Many of the others have been scared off the strip, and it’s a wonder that Keith hasn’t been. Shiro tells him as much. 

“I can take care of myself,” Keith says quietly. 

It's an incredulous response, so much so that Shiro is momentarily rendered speechless. "I know you can take care of yourself," Shiro says, when he has recovered. "Hell, you're living proof of survival against the odds. But, Christ. Do you really need to tempt the fates?"

Keith sighs, then lifts his right leg and props it on the seat. He cuffs the pant leg up above his ankle. Strapped to it is a folded, butterfly knife, the handle finished in purple. He unfolds the cuff and the knife disappears from view.

“And it’s not the first time I’ve had to carry it on me.”

_

 

Keith sidles up behind Shiro and wraps his arms around him. “You’re still thinking about it?”

Shiro is standing at his bedroom window, in Keith’s usual place of meditation. It’s as clear tonight as the night Shiro first brought Keith home, and the stars and the wide expanse of sky project the same tranquility, but it’s incongruous to the traffic buzzing in Shiro’s mind. He has learned too much in too short a time, and, tonight, the stars have no power to contract his worry, to smooth its edges and quiet it to something manageable.

The truth is, Shiro feels helpless. He's helpless with worry - and a need to know that had started as a vague curiosity and metastasized rapidly, like a tumor, until it was all Shiro could think about the rest of the ride. It's all he can think about now, what Keith said, the implications of it. And he has to know, no matter the voice that says: _don’t_. Because if he goes there, he can never return.

He looks at his and Keith’s reflection in the window, at the softened version of Keith, as if the perpetual wariness in his eyes had been airbrushed away. And it’s somehow worse seeing him like this, because he looks _so_ young. Shiro winds an arm through Keith’s, gently dislodges a hand and holds it in his.

“How old were you when you started carrying a knife?”

“Eleven.”

“And why - ” Shiro tries to dig for the right words, as if there are any. “Because someone was hurting you.” 

Keith nods.

“Who?”

“Foster mom’s boyfriend.”

 _Did you tell anyone? Did they do anything? Did they believe you?_ The questions erupt in a rush in Shiro’s mind, but he finds that he’s unable to say them out loud.

It’s as if Keith has heard him anyway, or maybe he’s used to being asked, because he says, “I told a neighbor. And he believed me. No one else did.” And it’s so matter-of fact, said so _obviously_ , that Shiro doesn’t know what to do with the rage it triggers and tears viciously through him. He’s afraid that if he voices it, he’ll direct it at Keith, and that’s not just _not_ fair and wrong, but more of everything this kid has never deserved.

“Hey,” Keith says, turning Shiro to face him, and Shiro realizes belatedly that he’s shaking. Keith reaches up and cups a cheek. “Hey, it’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

“It’s not,” Shiro says vehemently, and hugs Keith to him. “It’s not okay.”

“I know, I just meant I’m fine.” 

And how fucked up is it that Keith is comforting _him_?

Keith pulls away and leads him to the armchair across the room. He prods Shiro to sit first, then straddles his lap. He kisses Shiro on the cheek. “It’s still me,” he whispers like a caress. He hikes up on his knees and bends over Shiro, opens his mouth. Shiro surges up to meet him, and kisses him and kisses him until Shiro’s lips are aching and tingling and Keith has to break away for a breath. 

“It’s still me,” Keith repeats and urges Shiro’s hands to roam his body. “Come on, baby, make me feel good.”

So Shiro noses under Keith’s jaw and prods Keith to tilt back his head for better access. He ignores the faint nag of guilt, the spike of conscience, a thing Shiro had long believed he had smothered into submission, by ambition first, then by cynicism, then apathy. It's telling him, _this isn't right_. Not now. Not ever.

But Keith _wants_. Shiro knows it for the distraction it is. But Keith wants. And this is the least that Shiro can give him.

He glides his mouth down Keith’s neck to kiss at his throat, lick a thick stripe over the curve of his Adam’s apple, and suck gently at the soft skin high up on his neck, behind his ear, that makes Keith shiver. 

“That’s good,” Keith says breathlessly, and moans when Shiro thumbs his nipples through his shirt.

Keith likes this - Shiro petting him over his clothes, rucking up his shirt, but only slightly, so he can tease at the hint of skin. Keith mewls softly, as if in protest, when Shiro’s hand explores past the waistband of his jeans to cup a cheek, graze a finger along his crack, like it’s still forbidden, like they’re teenagers with barely any experience, and no one has ever touched Keith there - like this is Keith's first time, the first time he didn't get to have. And when Shiro laps at a nipple, then takes it into his mouth to suckle it, Keith gasps as if no one has ever done it to him. 

“Have you fucked anyone bare?” Shiro murmurs against his chest, takes a moment to admire the wet spot he made on the fabric and Keith’s hard little nub clinging to it. He kisses it a final time before shifting his attention to the other nipple.

“No, I don’t do that, I told you. _Fuck._ ” Keith hisses at the blunt intrusion of Shiro’s finger. It should sting without lube, but Keith rides it like he’s in heat. “I’m clean,” he continues, after he catches a breath. “You know that.”

Shiro does. He had Keith tested, their last time, despite Keith insisting that it was unnecessary, that Shiro wasn’t the _only paranoid freak and I don’t want AIDS and shit anymore than you do, thanks_. But Shiro had to see the clean bill of health with his own eyes, from a source he trusted, and now that Pidge has given him the green light, Shiro can have Keith the way he’s been aching for.

“Lift up,” Shiro says. He pulls down Keith’s jeans, just past his hips, frees his own cock, and lubes it liberally.

And _god_ is it different. With no barrier between his cock and Keith’s tight, warm heat, Shiro can feel _everything_ , and it’s _so_ good. He buries his face in Keith’s neck and clutches Keith to him as he fucks up up up into Keith and bottoms out. Then holds.

“Don’t,” Shiro gasps. “Don’t move. Not yet.” Because Shiro wants to savor this - this feeling of too much and, yet, not enough, how it licks down his spine, all the way to his toes, lighting up each nerve, and he can die from this. He _can_. But soon they’re both shaking from the effort of keeping still, and Shiro is mindlessly peppering Keith’s face with kisses, and Keith is babbling nonsense. Then Shiro has to shush him, has to silence Keith with his mouth, and then they’re moving, and it’s slow, so slow.

And time stops. The rest of the world disappears. And it’s just him and Keith, and the sound of their breathing, the slap of their skin, the heat between their bodies, and it’s thick, almost suffocating, and Shiro loses it. He loses it all.

_

 

Shiro wakes to a loud thump and a hissed curse. He pushes up on his elbow, peers into the dark, and his eyes adjust to the shape of Keith bent over the armchair, which has been dragged halfway across the room. The towel that Keith had forced underneath it to muffle the sound has gathered to the back legs. He must have been trying to readjust it and caused the chair to fall on his foot. It’s not the first time it has happened.

The fog of sleep is still a heavy weight in Shiro’s head and he could allow it to lull him back. Or he could join Keith. The choice is easy - he rises from the bed.

“Need help,” Shiro asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. He takes one side of the armchair, Keith takes the other, and they carry it the rest of the way to the window. Shiro sits, then Keith, and Keith folds himself on Shiro’s lap like he’s human origami, knees pressed to his chest, and Shiro’s arms come around to engulf all of him.

“Your toes are cold,” Shiro scolds.

Keith, whose mischievous side appears most distinctly in the wee hours of the night, digs them deeper into Shiro’s thigh. “Then warm them up.” And because Shiro finds this side of Keith charming, he wraps a slender foot in his hand and does.

“Got bored playing on the internet?”

Keith hums his confirmation. He has the sleep pattern of a vampire and the constitution, too, apparently, absent the blood addiction. He can’t sit still between the hours of dusk and dawn, while Shiro sleeps, when Shiro _can_ sleep, unless he’s preoccupied. The various gadgets in Shiro’s tech room can keep him busy, or the miles of books in Shiro’s cavernous library, though when Keith is very, very bored, he likes to test the efficacy of Shiro’s alarm systems - and Shiro’s patience - by touching things he has been explicitly told not to touch, or going inside rooms he’s not permitted to enter.

And then there are nights like this, when the stars call to him, and Shiro wakes from sleep, only to wonder whether he’s still dreaming when he catches sight of Keith, still as a statue and illuminated by moonlight, and Shiro feels his heart stutter.

“I used to do this, too, you know,” Shiro mumbles into his shoulder.

“Before you got too busy being a billionaire?"

Shiro laughs. “Something like that.”

“I hadn’t, in awhile. Not until you brought me here. I’d forgotten what it was like.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like - ” Keith pauses. “I don’t know. It’s hard to describe. But it’s like - it’s like I disappear. And, like, when I feel alone, and I always do…but when I look up there - I don’t know why, but it hurts less.”

Shiro spies their twined bodies reflected in the window and thinks he might understand.


	4. Chapter 4

Not long after sunrise, Keith goes predictably limp in his arms, all his vampire energy slumbered to a dormant state. It’s Shiro’s cue to call Keith a ride home, but he’s not ready to move just yet. Shiro’s arms have gone numb under and around Keith, and the dead weight of his body on Shiro’s chest isn’t exactly comfortable, and his hair keeps spiking back up to tickle Shiro’s lips after each time he tamps it down, and - and Shiro had forgotten what this was like: to have exactly what he wants, where he wants it, and to long for more, for permanency. He wants to freeze this moment, secure it in bubble wrap and stash it away where nothing and no one can damage it.

Something has shifted - has been shifting for months - but last night locked it in place. The very place that Shiro had been avoiding, by denying himself Keith, never altering their arrangement, no matter how Shiro grew to want him close every day, every minute; by excusing the way he gradually softened, in attention, in touch, to the passage of time; by telling himself that he had simply become bored of the power play or it was just too much effort to keep it up. Yet he distinctly remembers the instant he lost - to a smile, freely given, not as charity, and not wrung from a sense of obligation, but an expression of pure joy. And it had made Shiro _happy_. It lit him up inside, and Shiro wanted to multiply that feeling by the thousands and give it all to Keith.

He supposes he could, in the context of whatever this thing was between them. Because for all that has changed, the one obvious, defining thing hasn’t: Keith is not his partner; Keith is his whore. And it may be cowardice (it is), but Shiro isn’t ready to conceive an alternative. His cynicism is too integral a part of him, and he isn’t convinced that a _relationship_ for god’s sake, isn’t completely ridiculous.

Which is why Shiro can’t ask Keith to stay. He dismisses the idea, finally, that has been spinning in his mind for hours as the solution to his worries. 

_

 

There is one thing he can do.

Shiro bundles Keith into a wool coat that is comically huge on him, ignores his sleepy protests, and ushers him into the SUV.

“What’s happening?” Keith asks with a huge yawn.

“I’m taking you home.”

“What?” Keith blinks. 

“I’m taking you home,” Shiro repeats, then reaches over Keith and buckles him in when Keith makes no move to do it himself, presenting an impressive imitation of limp spaghetti against the passenger door.

“Why?”

“Because I want to.”

Shiro braces himself for more questions, or worse, an argument, but none comes. Either Keith is too stupid from lethargy to comprehend that Shiro is overstepping boundaries or he doesn’t care, because all Shiro gets is a sleepy “okay.” After Keith mumbles his address to Shiro, he settles back in the seat and promptly falls asleep.

Shiro types Keith’s address into the SUV’s GPS - 197 Sunshine Avenue. The map pinpoints Keith’s address, then Shiro shifts it to street view. A storefront with an awning that says “Kolivan’s” materializes on the screen. No, not a storefront; it’s a dicey-looking bar, and that can’t be right. Shiro enters Keith’s address again, but the same thing happens. Maybe the GPS is wrong, or slightly off. There are multi-floor buildings in the bar’s surrounding area that look like apartments. Keith’s must be one of them.  
_

 

The GPS is not wrong. The bar is clearly addressed “197” and Shiro is definitely on Sunshine Avenue. It’s a shitty strip of rundown buildings, dollar stores, fast food joints, and a Goodwill. Shiro doesn’t park and shakes Keith awake.

“Hey, give me your address again.”

Keith stretches, peers over his shoulder, and says drowsily, “197 Sunshine Avenue. This is it.”

“You live in a bar?” Shiro says, incredulous - as incredulous as Keith had been when he had asked if Shiro lived in a castle.

Keith nods. “Upstairs. In the back.”

Keith moves to exit the SUV, but Shiro shoots out an arm - “wait,” he says, then parks.

“What’s wrong?” Keith asks.

“Nothing.” Everything. Shiro’s brain is scrambling from yet more new information. He had known - has known - that Keith just gets by, that he lives stripped down to necessities. But Shiro is having difficulty reconciling the notion with this dingy block and this dicey bar that Keith apparently calls home. All of it is too much, suddenly. He’s at capacity. There’s not an inch left that he can spare or withstand for heartbreak, which is certain if he lets the pull of curiosity persuade him to go, go see what Keith’s place looks like. 

Shiro forces a smile. “Nothing. You should go, get some sleep.”

“Yeah,” Keith says, blinking heavily. He leans over, kisses Shiro on the cheek, and smiles softly. Shiro's chest aches at the sight of it. “I’ll see you?”

“You’ll see me.”

_

 

But Shiro is apparently a glutton for punishment. After a long, afternoon nap and three cups of coffee have him feeling as good as new, he heads for Cherry Road. He won’t be buying Keith’s time, not tonight, and he drives, instead of the SUV, a car that’s as washed out in appearance as cement and as unobtrusive. Dark, tinted windows are its only discernible features. Shiro parks far enough to be unseen, but close enough to monitor Keith.

Keith arrives near midnight, after both of Shiro’s legs have gone numb in cycles, and Shiro is convinced that he has died from boredom at least twice and is reincarnated back to a circle of hell that is in its entirety and for all eternity _just waiting_. It only goes downhill from there. 

A literal parade of men come and go from Keith, and Shiro is forced to witness each transaction that happens in plain sight, each excruciating second of Keith _selling_ and the men _buying_. Nausea coats his throat in bile. He hates these men. He hates that he’s one of them. 

But that hatred is incomparable to the fear that stalls his heart each time Keith leaves with a john. It’s a latent thing that lives in the valley between his disgust and jealousy, erupting to grip Shiro and suspend him in a state of purgatory where dread escalates second by second that Keith is gone until Shiro is crazy with it. He doesn’t know what is too long. All night, he finds himself on the cusp of rushing out just as Keith reappears, and he feels momentary relief until the shock of Keith with another john spikes another wave of fevered anguish. And it continues, on and on. 

But in the end, Keith gets home safe. He takes the bus. So there’s that.

_

 

Four nights later of nighty vigils, there’s a break in pattern. A car parks at the curb in front of Keith and a gangly, brown-haired boy exits. At first, Shiro thinks it’s _that_ brown-haired boy, but, no - that one is by the bus stop. _This_ boy sidles up to Keith, and he’s all smiles and laughter and waving, fluttering hands. Shiro pegs his type immediately: loud, bordering on obnoxious, yet endearing, wears his heart on his sleeve; a magnet that sucks all the attention from the room and basks in it. He is, in effect, the exact opposite of Keith. He steps into Keith’s space like he belongs there, and he touches Keith easily, unconsciously, as if it’s a practiced habit. And Keith _melts_. It’s the only way to describe how his body gradually releases tension, how his arms uncross and fall at his sides, how the rigid line in his body seeps away.

Understanding sinks in. That boy is not a john. He and Keith know each other. They _know_ each other.

The air evaporates from Shiro’s lungs. He can’t breathe. His face heats. He’s embarrassed - no, he’s humiliated. Of course, Keith has a boyfriend. White-hot anger tears through him. He feels like a fool. A stupid, jealous fool that wants to rip that boy’s hand off Keith’s lower back, _his_ Keith, as he steers Keith into the passenger seat of his car. _He’s mine._ It’s a manic, desperate, irrational thought, because Keith isn’t. He isn’t at all. It doesn’t stop Shiro from following them, from seeing the truth to the end. And he does, until the wee morning hours, parked across from Kolivan’s, where he wills the boy to come out, to leave Keith’s, because that will surely be the sign, though small and insignificant, from which Shiro can hang by the thread of hope that’s he’s wrong. But the boy doesn’t.

_

 

Shiro can’t sleep. He’s been tossing and turning for hours. His mind won’t turn the fuck off, driven in circles by _Keith, Keith, Keith_. He rolls out of bed, pulls on his pants, and speeds to Cherry Road. He’s drained of reason. Not a thought nags him from his better judgment. No shouldn’t or don’t. He is pure, iron will targeted toward a single goal.

And there he is. Keith is there, immediately.

His eyes widen at seeing the SUV and light up as it rolls to an abrupt stop. A smile as bright as a beacon spreads over his face. It strikes Shiro like a dagger.

“Hi,” Keith says, so sweetly, so invitingly.

“Hi.”

“Did you miss me?” His smile turns impish.

Shiro barks out a laugh. “Guess I did. No wait tonight, huh?”

Keith shakes his head. “Just got here.”

At Shiro’s, Keith is stunned speechless when Shiro, with no preamble, falls to his knees. He takes Keith's soft cock in his mouth. All of it fits in its quiescent state and Shiro breathes in Keith’s musk where his nose is pressed against Keith’s groin. 

He takes his time. He prolongs the suction of his lips, exaggerates each lick, and drags along Keith’s length in increments. He is pure, iron will determined to leave an impression, to replace the touch and feel of every man - that _boy_ \- before him and after. He wants Keith to have a single, abiding memory, to come home only to this, to Shiro and Shiro alone.

He spins Keith around, grips his ass so fiercely that it dents his skin. He pries the cheeks apart. “What are you - ” Keith says, astonished. This is the one thing that Shiro has never done to him. An act that has repelled Shiro before, he finds himself inexplicably aroused now.

He means to go slow, to tease. But instinct, hunger, override that intention, and his tongue goes hard, at once. It flicks at Keith’s hole at a rapid pace, as if Keith is a meal that will disappear if Shiro doesn’t eat him _right now_. It makes Shiro go dirty, sloppy, slobbering saliva at Keith’s crack, trailing it down inside his thighs, and drool down his chin. Above him, Keith sobs. His legs are shaking against Shiro and he’s barely anchored where he stands, an arm flung behind him and his hand twisted in Shiro’s hair. Fragments of words punch from his throat: _puh-plea…st-sto…c-c-can't_.

But he can. Shiro takes him past that point. Drives them both over the edge and further, to a raw, raw place, all nerves and feeling and primal need. And Shiro comes, harder than he ever has, on his knees, hand on his cock, and at a flashing thought: _this is it_. Keith follows with a shattering scream.

_

Shiro wakes terrified. His heart is hammering in his chest and the sound of an explosion is thundering in his ears. The smell of blood is overwhelming. He gags. _Samuel,_ he thinks. Then: _no_. Samuel disappears in a wall of smoke and fire, and Shiro is stuck; he can’t move, can’t get to him. Instantly, he becomes aware of pain. It’s awful, indescribable, and he reaches a shaking hand toward it - and encounters metal, cold, smooth and unyielding. It jolts him to the present.

A nightmare. He hasn’t had one since Keith - 

_Keith._

A different terror replaces the old one. He scrambles for the space beside him - it’s empty, but still warm. Keith is not far. 

He’s not in the armchair, and the light in the bathroom is off. Shiro walks across the bedroom. He is at the door, hand on the doorknob, when he hears it: the bright, tinkling melody of Keith’s ringtone.

Later, Shiro will try to blame delirium, from lack of sleep. It will be a weak attempt, made only after Shiro has drunk glass after glass of whisky, and he is wallowing in self-pity and loathing. He will fail, willingly, because he cannot, can never, excuse what comes next.

Instead, Shiro will deliberate for hours on end, taking apart each second of this night to determine exactly where it - he - went wrong. He will try to isolate the thought, because it starts with a thought, that compels him to look for Keith’s phone. Because he has never felt interest before, not even a mild curiosity. He will observe himself, as if removed from his body, as he catalogues the information he finds. A text. From someone named Coran. That boy, he will assume automatically, it must be that boy.

_Keith, it was good seeing you today. I’ve missed you. And thank you again for your generosity. I promise to stop nagging you about where you get the money._

Shiro will remember the shock, the way his insides go icy, and how quickly it mutates to a hot, hot anger. A blazing, wild firestorm that consumes _everything_ , burns all that he thought he knew about Keith to ashes. It will blind him, diminish every charitable sentiment he had ever felt toward Keith to suspicion. When he can see again, it will be to find Keith in the room, as if he’d been teleported there. He’ll barely digest Keith’s own surprise, the anger in his voice when he demands, “What are you doing?” But Keith’s self-righteous indignation is an ant and Shiro’s rage barrels over it.

He will try to forget the words that spill from him in a torrent, to compartmentalize them in the remote area of his brain where he locks away his most painful regrets. But they will return. He cannot stop them from returning.

 _So, this is what you’ve been doing with my money. No - it’s my money. Money I’ve been giving to you, to help you, you ungrateful shit. And you’ve been giving it to this, this Coran. Who is that, your boyfriend? Your_ partner _? It’s that kid, that boy that picked you up last night, right? Stop shaking your head. Stop lying to me. He’s the one you’ve been fucking. For free. No, no - you’ve been paying him. With my money. No, shut up. Shut the fuck up. You fucking liar. It’s all been a lie, hasn’t it? Your tragic little story. That fucking cliche. You hardly even made an effort, did you? Or maybe you’re just too stupid to come up with anything remotely unique, because you’re not. You’re not anything special. I bet you borrowed it from one of your street rat friends. Is that what you whores do? Pass around fairytales for the johns. Do you mark us for which lies you think will milk you the most money? Keep us coming back until you fuck us dry? Do you even live at Kolivan’s? Or is that just part of your sad, little tragic boy scam. You and this Coran._

He will try hardest, and most desperately, to erase the memory of Keith’s face, how it goes white and defenseless. How it bare’s Keith’s hurt, and how that hurt progresses, with each hit of Shiro’s awful words, paring his face from injured to devastated. And it doesn’t end. Shiro will wish desperately that he had stopped at words. That he doesn’t then stalk to the nightstand, where he had tossed his wallet, and shake its contents to the floor and demand that Keith take his money and _get the fuck out_. How Keith crumples to his knees and picks up each scattered bill with shaking hands. How his eyes blink furiously, but fail to hide how hard he tries to not cry, as he looks at Shiro a final time.

Shiro never will pinpoint the thought that started it. No matter how often and how much he replays the night. He will never learn why he did what he did; and he’ll get stuck at _what if_ , contemplating the choices he could have made: ignore the ringing; ignore the text, or ask about it; shut your mouth; stop talking; say you’re sorry, say it, say it. But he doesn’t.

He won’t have to remember the quiet that follows. The quiet never fades to a memory, but stays, taking up all the space Keith leaves behind.


	5. Chapter 5

Someone is pounding on Shiro’s door. Shiro blinks his sticky eyes open and groans - no, the pounding is in his head. Someone is ringing the doorbell. _No._ Someone has jammed up against the doorbell, insistently, as if their very life depends on it, and it will if it doesn’t stop _right now_. Mercifully, it does. Shiro sighs in relief and closes his eyes. He’s back on the edge of sleep when a louder, shrill, and more aggressively irritating sound provokes him to sit up and curse. The bastard has tripped an alarm. Shiro is going to kill him.

He flings the covers off and flinches at the sudden shock of light. He had gone to sleep - passed out, more like - and hadn’t bothered turning it off. He glances at the clock. It’s barely past midnight. Reluctantly, he gets to his feet, sways - whoa, a little drunk then, still - and drags himself to the video feed above his desk. On the way, he trips over an empty bottle of vodka, kicks it in petty revenge, and watches with satisfaction as it rolls away meekly. His mouth tastes like week-old socks have been left inside it to pickle. And he stinks. 

It’s that boy. Keith’s boyfriend. The little shit is at his front door, arms crossed and tapping his feet as if Shiro owed him something, like time or an explanation. The nerve. He should let the alarm run its course, have the police show and handle the kid. Maybe Shiro would let them handle him to an arrest, a little old-fashioned roughing up helped along by a few white lies. _He’s armed, officers. I think he might even have a gun._ That’ll teach him.

Of course, Keith would never forgive him. Not that it matters, and not as if he still matters to Keith. Not as if he wants to. 

But it would be too much of a hassle, Shiro decides. Not even the value of schadenfreude is worth the prospect of actually having to deal with the police. Truthfully, he’d like to go back to bed and bury himself back under the blankets. After a drink, or five. 

Shiro deactivates the alarm. He is trudging down the final steps of the flight down when the buzzer of the doorbell returns with a fierce intensity. He trips over his feet and nearly eats the floor. The little shit. Forget the police, he’ll do the roughing up himself. 

He flings the front door open and growls, “What do you want?”

The boy flinches back, but recovers quickly. He wastes no time with introductions and gets to the point: “Keith needs your help.”

Shiro laughs, short and bitter. “No, he doesn’t.” Shiro is the last thing Keith needs. “Get out of here. And stop fucking with the doorbell and alarms or I’ll have you arrested.” He moves to shut the door, and the kid shoots out a foot to stop him. “Look, kid, I don’t have time - ”

“You can stop right there because you do. You have time, you have money, you have resources - and you’re the only one who can help Keith.” 

And that’s how Shiro learns that Keith has killed someone. The someone who had been picking off boys on Cherry Road and had finally made his way to Keith.

_

 

Lance - who belatedly introduces himself after reacting in horror (as Shiro does in turn, after the realization) to Shiro calling him Coran - forces Shiro to first take a shower and brush his teeth. Lance is right; Shiro is barely recognizable as human. But Shiro has to fight the impulse to shake Lance and insist that they rush to Keith immediately. Lance is firm - and dramatic: “Dude, you smell like you’ve been living out of a cardboard box, marinating in liquor and piss. I can’t breathe with you two inches from my face. I’ll die from your stink long before we get to Keith’s.” He’s still grumbling about the futility of even commercial grade air freshener having any impact against Shiro when Shiro walks away, throws his hands up in surrender, and heads for the bathroom.

On the way to Keith’s, Shiro expects that he’ll have to dig for information, as he had to with Keith, dragging each piece of fact from him like Shiro was paparazzi and Keith a celebrity, hoarding his secrets. But Lance reminds him yet again that they are nothing alike. Unprovoked, he launches into a verbal stream of consciousness that would have made James Joyce proud and meanders all the way back to when he met Keith at juvenile hall.

“We were bunked together,” Lance says, “Me, Keith, Hunk." He chuckles. "Man, Keith was so mean. He was like a rabid dog - a tiny ass chihuahua - you couldn’t get close to. Had a stack of sudoku books yay high.” He raises a hand to his forehead to demonstrate. “That’s how he did his time at juvi, at first, his runt-ass squeezed into the smallest, most obscure places. He hated being found. But then one day - ” 

The day of a hearing, Keith had returned distraught, too shaken to hide it. And he confessed everything, the what and whys of his situation. That he had killed his foster mom's boyfriend, and that it had been in self-defense. Evidence supported it - a rape kit, his social worker, an expert on sexual abuse. But the guy was loaded and he had a reputation. Character witnesses lined up singing the same false tune: _he would never, ever hurt a child_.

Prosecution refused to deal, at first. “He was a mess. His lawyer told him he had to testify. That all he had to do was tell the truth. So he did. But they destroyed him on cross-examination.” 

“But he was just a child,” Shiro protests, and vehemently, as if it could make its way back into the past and make a difference. His heart aches at the thought of Keith small and afraid, bullied into submission.

Lance nods. “Keith had it bad. Poor guy drew the unlucky straw. He’d been shuffled from home to home, at that point. Got labeled ‘difficult’ and ‘troubled.’ So they decided to make an example out of him - by trying him as an adult. If it wasn’t for Coran - ”

Coran had been Keith’s next door neighbor. _He was the only one that believed me._ The words echo with a faint wistfulness and sorrow that Shiro doesn’t remember hearing when Keith had said them. Coran was like a father to Keith, Lance tells Shiro. His testimony turned the case.

A fresh wave of guilt and grief washes over Shiro. He had been wrong, so very, very wrong. He needs to tell Keith, needs him to know how sorry he is. It’s a sharp, urgent desire, and he wishes that Lance was driving faster, never mind that they were flying miles above the speed limit.

“He’s been giving Coran money?” Shiro asks.

Lance nods, surprised. “How do you know about that?”

Shiro sighs. “I just do.” 

The short response makes Lance look at Shiro curiously, but he doesn’t press for more. “The old guy’s been sick,” he says. "Had a bit of bad luck a few years ago - lost his job, his insurance, then got diagnosed with some kidney thing. His best shot was an experimental treatment. Expensive as shit. And Coran was going to turn it down, but Keith wouldn’t let him.” 

Lances pauses, as if thinking through what he'll say next. “I know something happened,” he starts carefully, “with you and Keith. I can always tell when he’s got a bug up his ass. He acts like a dick, and he’s been a bigger dick than usual.”

“I’m not talking to you about that,” Shiro says curtly. 

“I’m not asking you to. I just - whatever it was, you’ll still help him, right? At least get him a good lawyer. He has that felony from, well, you know. The judge refused to seal his records, so it’s been following him around. But they pled him down to involuntary manslaughter, time served, and that’s gotta count for something, right? And all he’s done since has been petty shit - got caught with weed, helped himself to a five finger discount when he was really desperate but, mostly, it’s been soliciting. And he’s scared. Really scared. He hasn’t said so, but I know him.”

“You love him.”

Lance makes a face, like he’s just bitten into something sour. “Uh, yeah, I guess. He’s like a brother to me. And when he’s not being a dick, he’s stupid generous. So - ” Lance shrugs. He’s slightly pink.

Like a brother. Of course. 

“I’ll help him,” Shiro says. He doesn’t say more after that, succumbing to his thoughts as Lance continues to prattle on.

_

 

Lance leads him through Kolivan’s to a door that swings into the kitchen, where he salutes a big, stocky man flipping burgers. 

“That’s Hunk,” he says over his shoulder. “He got Keith the room upstairs. It’s a shithole, but the rent’s cheap. And Hunk feeds him, so he doesn’t have to worry about food.” 

They exit through another door that empties into a dingy hallway and a set of narrow stairs. Upstairs is a cramped area. A short hallway leads in two directions and two doors - to the left Shiro guesses is the entrance back to the second floor of the bar and to the right must be Keith’s room. Even from the outside, it’s apparent that it’s tiny, possibly a closet that’s been repurposed.

Lance knocks. “Keith, it’s me.” They get no answer. Lance knocks again, louder. “Dude, open the door.” And when that still fails to get a response, Lance employs the same strategy he had used on Shiro, amplifying his knocking - banging - to unbearably obnoxious, but it bears no fruit.

Lance curses under his breath and tells Shiro he needs to get the keys from Hunk. “Wait here,” he says, and Shiro does, half excited and half terrified at the notion of Keith opening the door, finally, while Lance is gone and finding Shiro standing there, alone. Then again, Keith may be purposely avoiding them. It's possible he's just on the other side of the door, peeking through the peephole and determinedly refusing them access. Shiro's excitement deflates. Minutes later, Lance returns. He slots the keys in place and says in an aggravated tone,“Hunk didn’t see Keith leave, so he’s here. Don’t know why he’s not answering the door. Dick.”

Lance knees the door open, revealing a view of a wire strung across the room and a cropped white and red jacket hanging from it. So Keith does own a jacket. Doesn’t look very warm, Shiro has a spare second to think, then Lance’s alarming yelp - “what the fuck” - has him whipping his head toward the sound of it. He sees Lance rush into the room and skid to a crouch on the floor, next to a bed. Keith is lying on it, curled up small and tight. He’s pale, sickly pale, and too still. There is a large, wet patch on his t-shirt, below his ribs. Blood. 

Shiro rushes in after him and drops to the floor beside Lance, who is hovering a hand over Keith. He looks lost, as if he doesn’t know where and how to touch him. “Why didn’t you say anything?” Lance asks, and its edged with panic. “Never mind, of course you didn’t. You stubborn prick.” At the insult, as if it’s magic, Keith’s eyes slit open. But they train past Lance to some distant point. His breathing is fast and labored. 

A strange calm descends on Shiro. He nudges Lance aside - “let me,” he says. Carefully, he peels away Keith’s shirt. Beneath it, Keith’s side is bandaged clumsily. Bruises are colored around it, and when Shiro prods at them, he’s alarmed by the temperature of Keith’s skin. “He has a fever. An infection, I think.” He slides an arm under Keith’s knees and the other under Keith’s head, and lifts him. Keith doesn’t react at all. His head lolls against Shiro and the rest of him is dead weight.

_

 

They exit through a side entrance, sparing them the attention of the crowd in the kitchen and bar. Shiro settles Keith in the backseat, slots himself beside him, and uses his lap to pillow Keith’s head. “No hospital,” Shiro says. Hospitals make records. They’ll call the police. And, sure, Shiro can take care of that later, but why make his job harder? He has a plan and execution begins now.

Understandably, Lance shoots Shiro a skeptical look. 

“I know a better place,” Shiro reassures. “And someone who can treat him the way he needs - deserves - to be treated. He’ll get top notch care and undivided attention.”

Lance nods. He needs no more convincing. After Shiro supplies him with directions, he peels away from the curb and floors the gas.

Shiro sends a quick text: _I need your help. It’s an emergency._ After, he takes Keith’s hand, lying limp and lifelessly, in his. He is simultaneously gripped by fatigue and adrenaline. Fear is making his pulse beat at a rapid pace. He begs, to whom or what he doesn’t know: _please, please let him be okay_.

_

 

Pidge is standing next to a wheeled stretcher in the empty parking lot of Holt Memorial when they arrive. Shiro and Lance transfer Keith to it and try not to jostle him as they hasten across the lot. They rush past the reception area and into an elevator that ascends past the labs, where Pidge likes to hole up, running tests and experiments and poring over their results. She is an excellent physician, and an even better scientist. Samuel would have been proud. At the thought of him, Shiro’s past and present grief collide. He doesn’t know what he’ll do, who he’ll become, if Keith dies. He doesn’t know if he can bear it. He’s barely survived himself all these years.

Pidge - who is like a sister to Shiro, he suddenly realizes - lays a hand on his arm and squeezes it. “He’ll be fine,” she says. 

There are three nurses waiting on the floor of the Intensive Care Unit when they exit from the elevator. They take over the job of transporting Keith. Shiro and Lance are allowed as far as the door to the room where Keith will be treated. There, Pidge spares a brief moment to give an explanation and reassure again, “He’ll be fine.” Then she disappears.

In the wake of all that hyper activity, a pall of silence descends, sequestering Shiro and Lance to their own thoughts. Only faith and hope remain. Only faith and hope glue them together to survive the wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have underestimated this story by at least three chapters. I promise (I think), only two more to go.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title changed from (Not A) Missed Connection

“His prognosis is good. He should be fully healed in a few weeks. It would’ve been sooner if he sought treatment immediately. But the combination of a bad infection and that he was apparently sick - he had a cold when the stabbing occurred. Yes, he was stabbed. Right. Should’ve led with that. It wasn’t deep, didn’t hit anything vital. He’s been stitched up and he’ll have a scar, but other than the infection, that’s the worst he’ll walk away with. He’s lucky. You got him here in time. And he doesn’t show signs of sexual trauma. Other than the laceration on his stomach, he doesn’t have any other physical injuries, no fresh bruises or abrasions, none of the defensive wounds typically associated with sexual assault. Their absence isn’t dispositive, so I can’t be certain, but I don’t think he was raped or that there was an attempt or - at least, it didn’t get that far.”

_

 

Shiro holds Keith’s hand as he sits vigil by his bed. He watches the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the flutter of movement beneath his shut eyelids. He brushes a strand of hair behind an ear and caresses a cheek. 

Shiro’s beautiful, fragile, broken boy.

He laces their fingers and makes a silent promise: I will do better. 

_

 

Shiro hovers at the door to Keith’s room and watches as he tries determinedly to scoop jello from its tiny container. His brows are drawn together and the tip of his tongue pokes between his gritted teeth. Finally, Keith succeeds with a hearty spoonful and he grins triumphantly. The jello wobbles on its way up, as jittery as Keith’s hand. But Shiro holds his breath. It might make it this time - it doesn’t. Inches from Keith’s mouth, the red blob tips too far over the spoon’s edge and topples onto his lap. Keith scurries to catch it before it plummets to the floor, but he is too slow, still too clumsy and imprecise from medication and illness. He frowns in frustration. A furrow appears between his brows that Shiro aches to rub away. 

Shiro hurries into the room and pulls a chair next to Keith’s bed. He extends a hand - “let me,” he says, ready to take the spoon from Keith or hold it together with him. But Keith has gone rigid and isn’t looking at Shiro. His body is angled away and screaming with every tight line etched into it that Shiro should not touch him. Shiro’s hand falters.

“It’s okay,” Keith says softly. “I’m not hungry.” Unfortunately, his stomach growls in the next moment and betrays his lie. Because of course he is. Because the tray of food is untouched except for the jello and only because Keith likes to eat desert first. Shiro bites down against the impulse to correct him.

This was a mistake. Shiro should have called Martha like Sheila had suggested earlier, when she told Shiro that her son had the flu so she wouldn’t be coming today. _Keith will like her,_ Sheila had assured him. But as Shiro was dialing Martha’s number, an idea occurred to him. He could take care of Keith. He’s been paying close enough attention, watching Sheila like a hawk when she fed Keith, checked his temperature, or resettled him back in bed after a trip to and from the bathroom. 

Truthfully, Shiro’s envied their physical intimacy and wished himself in her place. He has wanted to be the one giving Keith his sponge baths, running the wash cloth up and down his thinned arms, across that collar bone that protrudes more prominently since he’s been sick. He has longed to be the last person that Keith sees before he drops to sleep, whether for an afternoon nap or at night, fluffing the pillows beneath Keith’s head and tucking the blanket under his chin.

It could be a trial run, he had thought. A new beginning - the beginning that Shiro had imagined would unfold effortlessly after Shiro brought Keith home and he returned to consciousness. That it didn’t - had been a shock. Of course Shiro began with an apology: “Keith, I’m so sorry,” but that was as far as he got in the speech he had been practicing religiously in his head. Finally, Shiro had his moment, but as Keith’s eyes went clear and comprehending, instead of welcoming Shiro, they had gone cold. And Shiro had stuttered to a stop, rendered speechless. 

The rest of his speech was forgotten and there has been no opportunity since to finish it - until today. Or so Shiro thought, hoped. He would have shown Keith how desperately he wanted to make things right.

But Keith is uninterested - worse, he’s repelled by Shiro. The pain of his rejection is indescribable, but Shiro will not force his attention on Keith. Not now. Not again. He goes against the grain of habit and forces himself to stand and step away. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, before slipping out of the room to make the call to Martha. At the door, he spares a glance over his shoulder, unable to shake the hope that he will find Keith watching him and he’ll catch a look, a hint of something, anything that remotely resembles forgiveness. But Keith is not watching him. He is barely even here, as faraway as the look in his eyes.

_

 

Days pass. Keith thaws mildly. Like a character from a British period drama, he becomes painfully polite and courteous, entertaining a brief chat on occasion. But the Keith-bubble, as Shiro has come to calling the invisible field that Keith projects at Shiro, remains staunchly in place. It recedes slightly only when Lance visits and only because Lance is more charitable. 

“I’m fine here,” Shiro insists from a seat in a far corner of the room, at Lance’s insistence that he stay, ignoring as Lance rolls his eyes at him and waives his hands to come closer. They are like a comedic duo rehashing the same routine each time. But it is necessary that Shiro stay in role; it’s the only reason Keith tolerates him. And while he remains unobtrusive, he can watch Keith openly and without interruption.

Shiro drinks him in like a man who’s been stranded in a drought. He hangs on every word, commits each detail of an expression to memory - the upward tilt of his lips right before they blossom into a smile; the downward cast of his eyes when he’s listening intently; how his head bends to the left when he’s thinking through a response; the unconscious touch of his fingers to his mouth that Shiro can’t pin on any particular emotion and has chalked up to something like a tick. 

Keith around Lance is the Keith from before. And Shiro misses him terribly.

_

 

The text arrives on a bright, sunny afternoon: _I scrubbed it so clean, it’s shining_. 

It’s from Allura and she means Keith’s past, not a kitchen counter or grimy bathtub. So she’s done it. Get rid of the knife. Clear Keith’s records. He doesn’t need to disappear; he just needs a new life. And now he can have it, courtesy of an ex-CIA agent turned in demand expert on everything espionage.

A lightness Shiro hasn’t felt in a long while spreads through him from head to foot. He is proud of himself, he realizes. He hasn’t been proud of anything he has done or been in so long. But now Keith is free and Shiro helped him get there. 

It’s a sweet and sad victory. Because Keith is still not Keith, and they are still not what they were and they are no closer to what Shiro had hoped they’d become. Because Shiro has had sufficient time to think and spent most of it in longing that Shiro can finally be honest with himself. He loves Keith. He has loved Keith. And that simple truth deconstructs the complications and limitations he had fabricated on what they could be, together. And now it might be too late. It probably is too late and Shiro will have to live with that regret.

But he _loves_ Keith - enough to let him go.

_

 

Shiro wakes abruptly to the sound of his door slamming open. He bolts upright. It takes him a minute to remember where he is - in his bedroom, where he had returned several nights ago after Pidge had declared Keith fit enough to no longer need a nurse. Shiro had presumed Keith would leave immediately, return to Kolivan’s or take up temporary residence on Lance’s couch. He hasn’t. But he will, any day now. Shiro is certain of it.

It’s Keith at his door, the dark outline of him backlit by a shaft of light. Shiro tries not to hope, but he can’t stop his heart from racing suddenly.

“Are you okay?” Shiro calls to him.

Keith nods. “Can I come in?” He gestures at the bed and the empty space next to Shiro that has gone unoccupied by habit, Shiro having grown used to having Keith there. Shiro flips the blanket back, but sleep is not what Keith came for. Neither is he here to talk. Shortly, he is straddling Shiro. 

“Are you sure?” Shiro gasps at the rough swipe of Keith’s tongue against his throat. 

“Shut up,” Keith says sharply.

So Shiro does. He tries to go slowly, gently, carefully, but Keith smacks his wandering hands away and pins them to the bed. He yanks Shiro’s shirt off. So this is what Keith wants, Shiro has a moment to think, then all thoughts dissolve after Keith's mouth descends on his chest. Shiro has never permitted Keith to linger there, though he is just as sensitive. And when Keith’s warm, soft, wet mouth closes over a nipple and sucks, Shiro arches off the bed.

It’s indecent how quickly Keith has Shiro at his mercy. He is so overcome by Keith wandering back and forth from nipple to nipple, tonguing and suckling each in turn, that Shiro barely registers Keith slide down his body, wedge himself between Shiro’s legs, and push them apart. And it happens so quickly that Keith has his legs over his shoulders that he has no time to process Keith’s intention until he feels that slick, raspy tongue flick at his hole. And, _oh god_.

Keith does filthy things with his tongue and it’s not long before Shiro feels the crest of an orgasm building and he’s close, so close when Keith stops abruptly. _Fuck._ Is Keith trying to kill him?

“I’m going to fuck you,” Keith says, and a shiver goes up Shiro’s spine. He watches Keith slick his fingers. No one has ever gone this far.

“Wait - ” escapes Shiro’s lips, just as Keith penetrates him, and it’s just the tip of his finger, and it doesn’t hurt, but Shiro feels an instinctive push against it. His entire body locks up. But then Keith returns his mouth to Shiro’s chest and soon he is aching for more, and at the prod of Keith’s finger at his entrance Shiro spreads his legs wider. 

Keith wastes no time locating his prostate. After that, time blurs. Keith has three fingers up Shiro’s ass for god knows how long. He must look so obscene so spread apart. But Shiro is too senseless to feel embarrassed by any of it. It’s good, so good that Shiro grows quickly used to the sensation of being filled that he feels tragically empty when Keith withdraws. It’s a momentary transition that’s swiftly eclipsed by the head of Keith’s cock spearing Shiro open. At the breach, Shiro and Keith groan simultaneously. 

Keith knows how to fuck. And he fucks Shiro like he’s meant to be used, brutally and dirtily. And Shiro gets as hard as he’s never been. Noises spill from his mouth that he’ll later disclaim - _uh uh uh_ \- and he begs. Dear god, he begs. 

_Please_ \- so Keith will touch his cock. _Please_ \- so Keith will let him come. _Please please please_ \- until he whites out.

_

 

Keith is sweet, after. He lets Shiro kiss him on the brow, his cheek, his chin, then his mouth, endlessly. He allows Shiro to roll him onto his back and lays patiently, openly, as Shiro goes slowly, gently, carefully. 

Shiro worships every inch of Keith, leaves no patch of skin untouched. He has been made greedy by their separation and he kisses reverently around the stitches on Keith’s stomach. It will scar soon and Shiro will love it then, too, a reminder of what he had nearly lost. 

Keith parts his legs willingly. He breathes a sigh as dainty as a butterfly’s wings when Shiro rocks into him. And Shiro says _sorry, sorry_ as his face is buried in Keith’s hair and his cock is buried inside Keith. But Keith hushes him. He tightens his legs around Shiro and cants up to meet Shiro’s thrust: this is the language they understand best, and nothing more needs to be said. 

But in the morning, Keith is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate the old title. I'm sorry if I've confused anyone by the change.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story of human intimacy is one of constantly allowing ourselves to see those we love most deeply in a new, more fractured light. Look hard. Risk that. - Cheryl Strayed

**EPILOGUE**

**Postcard from the Atacama Desert, Chile. Addressed to Takashi Shirogane.**

What Tripadvisor says:

I read driest desert in the world, and a dark sky area great for stargazing and astral-photography. I should have looked closer at a breakdown of specific months. I did look at temps (usual desert stuff, be prepared for hot days and freezing nights), but didn't realize how much rain I'd see during my time there (almost daily), and how cloudy the nights would be (saw the sky clearly less than 50% of my total nights there).

What Keith says: 

Should’ve googled reviews before coming here. Oh, well. But I’ve lucked out on a few nights and the stars - it’s breathtaking.

_

 

Atacama Desert, Chile  
February

It’s cold. Correction: it’s freezing. Worse than the coldest nights on Cherry Road in just a t-shirt and jeans. And it’s wet. The rain won’t stop, not since the three-day reprieve a week ago. The sun had been unrelenting and the heat scorching, but it had been clear and Keith had a blessedly unobstructed view. An infinite number of stars mapped the sky, so clear and distinct it was as if they had punctured through as sparkling cuts of glass, and Keith felt swallowed up by their immensity. He had gone breathless and a sweet, tight pain clenched his chest. So this is what they mean by miraculous, he had thought. Followed immediately by _I wish Shiro was here_.

The irony is not lost on Keith that thousands of miles from the man he had sought to escape and forget, he would be the first to enter his mind. That Shiro would be the person Keith would yearn to be with in that moment, to be touched and moved and feel grateful suddenly for the experience together, and simply to be alive.

And it has little to do with the fact that Keith is in Chile only because of Shiro. The memory of Lance so casually giving him an envelope that held inside it an ATM card to a savings account that amounted to half a million is forever etched in Keith’s brain. How stunned he had been, at first. This is mine? But then Shiro’s words from that awful night returned - _it’s my money, mine, not yours_. And Keith had recoiled, pushed the ATM card back at Lance. He would not be obligated. He was not Shiro’s pet. And he would not be made to feel like a charity case, as if Shiro’s kindness and generosity were conditioned on a grant, a bequeathment awarded only if certain terms and conditions were met. 

No, thanks. And just like that Keith had closed his mind to the possibilities. Disappointment twisted his stomach, but he was used to it, as used to being poor and struggling and looked down on as dispensable. But he was also resilient and tough, and he would navigate life as he had before Shiro. He had stars carved in his heart from glimpsing them when he was young and he would continue to follow them. He had that much, and it was more than most of the boys on Cherry Road. 

But Lance - dear, sweet, obnoxious, stubborn, annoying, irritating Lance - convinced Keith to keep the money. No strings attached. Shiro had promised and _by the way, he looks like shit_ , but Keith had shut down the conversation after that.

And here Keith is, at the opposite end of the world, living a dream and wishing upon stars for one thing and one thing only: Shiro.

_

 

**Postcard from Observatorio do Lago Alqueva (Lake Alqueva Observatory), Portugal. Addressed to Takashi Shirogane.**

What Tripadvisor says:

Nuno, our guide, provided a wonderful, very instructive (indoor) tour of the night sky using some fantastic software. Nuno is quite passionate about astronomy, and that passion was infectious. In the two hours we were there, he walked us through the history of the universe, starting with the Big Bang, told us why and how celestial bodies stars form and die. He constantly kept us involved by asking questions and made everything understandable through some great metaphors.

What Keith says:

Nuno _is_ awesome. The people on the tour - not so much. I tried to be social, I did. (Not really.)

_

 

Observatorio do Lago Alqueva, Portugal  
May

Virgo. Corvus. Canes Venatici. And, of course, Cassiopeia. Keith ticks down his list of constellations and marks a check next to each. They are not likely to be as vibrant and visceral from Shiro’s window, if they’re visible at all, but Shiro might like to try finding them. And he would try, if Keith asked. 

In Monsaraz, after several days spent at the observatory, Keith encounters his first real-life castle. A fortress of stone, it is nothing like Shiro’s mansion, and it breathes of centuries of war and enduring. Keith feels humbled by its history and the townspeople. Life here moves at a different pace and traditions are celebrated daily - in clothing, in the way people greet each other, in the way a woman who sells trinkets for tourists looks at Keith like she does the couple next to him or the elder man who peers over his shoulder. They are foreigners, but they are welcome. 

Keith buys most of the woman’s stock and she gives him a delighted and amused smile. Her eyes sparkle knowingly as if she can see through Keith and all his hidden secrets. As if they have a kinship, and perhaps they do. Perhaps they know each other the way two people who meet for the first time can know each other, without words and despite different languages, different histories, there is a connection. 

Keith is more than his past, because this woman sees none of it, and he is shaken to the core by the realization. He had not intended to find this here, had no notion of it to even conceive the idea, but here he is, himself, but someone else. The reality - this new inconceivable, but conceivable reality - breaks Keith open and thank god he’s back in his hotel room when it hits, because he falls to his knees and weeps. 

He _is_ free. He is truly, finally free. He whispers a note of thanks and hopes it carries back to Shiro’s heart.

_

 

 **Postcard from National Bridges Monument, Utah. Addressed to Takashi Shirogane.**

What Tripadvisor says:

We enjoyed the beautiful Natural Bridges but our main goal was to stay for the Dark Park Star Gazing. It was awesome. We had decent weather so at 8:00 PM our park ranger brought out the telescope to the parking lot. Then she spent over an hour telling us about the stars, Milky Way, and constellations. It was quite a night light show. 

What Keith says:

Four words: bermuda shorts and crocs. I know, I know I shouldn’t judge. Especially with my “mullet,” as Lance likes to call it. It isn’t, by the way. Lance is just a dick. Also, what possessed me to join another tour group? Oh, I know, because I’m _trying_. Trying really sucks.

_

 

National Bridges Monument, Utah  
September

It’s the closest Keith has been to Shiro in months. Three hours by plane, a few days by train, if Keith chose the non-express route. This near-and-yet-so-far thing, or that thing that had defined their last few weeks together - that must be why Keith is here: in a bathroom stall in a gay bar in Utah, his naked front pressed to the cold metal door. 

The lock is digging into his side, but Keith is a master at ignoring such trivial inconveniences. He’s been fucked in worse places and against more uncomfortable surfaces. But it’s harder to ignore the not-quite-there, not-quite-it feeling that can’t be squashed by the cock in his ass. 

The man is square-jawed and built like a brick house, but all similarities to Shiro end there. He sounds and smells nothing like Shiro. He doesn’t fuck hard enough, and he isn’t filthy, bordering on cruel as Shiro sometimes did.

Shiro confused the fuck out of Keith, in the beginning. He did things, made Keith do things, that had been purely transactional for Keith. No pleasure, no pain either, but tricks that Keith delivered because he was paid to. Until Shiro, and only with Shiro, did they become…good. He liked how Shiro used him. How dirty Shiro made him feel during sex, but not after. Keith didn’t feel the need to scrub himself clean or overlay an experience with something else - something or someone to distract the faint pulse of shame that crawled beneath his skin. The niggle of _wrong_ that he could never smother, not completely, and that surfaced each time he felt pleasure. Until Shiro.

Keith thinks of Shiro now, the last time Shiro fucked him like this, but on his bed, blanketing Keith’s back. The grind of his hips, the frustration of Keith’s immobility - because Shiro refused to let him move. He had Keith pinned and Keith just had to take it. And, god, it was maddening. Hours of slow, merciless fucking, and Shiro forbidding Keith to come each time Keith was close. When he finally did give permission, Keith orgasmed so violently, so intensely that he blacked out. His whole body came - or so it felt like it. Keith surfaced back to consciousness to Shiro peppering his face with kisses and wiping his crotch with a warm, damp cloth. 

“My beautiful, sweet boy,” Shiro had murmured. “Thank you.”

So close, but not quite. Negative: he isn’t close at all. Keith pushes the man off his back and onto the toilet. Surprise and irritation flash across his face, replaced quickly by bliss after Keith climbs him and sinks down on his cock. Seconds later, they both come, but Keith is not satisfied. Not at all.

_

 

**Postcard from Mount Everest at Sagarmatha National Park, Nepal. Addressed to Takashi Shirogane**

What Tripadvisor says:

Climb Kala Patthar before the sun rises, the stars are incredible. take in the culture, the people people are fantastic. also dal bhat is free seconds so always order this :)

What Keith says:

National Geographic called this place “where the roof of the world touches the sky.” I don’t think any Tripadvisor review can say it better, and I certainly can’t. I have no words, except - I wish you were here. Oh, and the people are fantastic and the dhal bhat is delicious, so I guess I did have something to say. One more thing: I miss you.

_

 

Mount Everest at Sagarmatha National Park, Nepal  
December

Keith stays longest in Nepal and it’s entirely due to a little boy he meets, yet another vendor of tourist trinkets. His stock is not especially impressive in size or appearance, and the vendors surrounding him in stalls or crouched individually on the ground as he is have better wares. Keith doesn’t know what it is about this boy that draws Keith to him - whether it’s his open face and sweet smile or that he is probably five or six years old but is so tiny that he could pass for a toddler. Probably because he breaks Keith’s heart a little (a lot).

As with the woman in Chile, Keith buys the boy’s stock - but all of it. He returns to do the same a day later, and the day after that. And again, until a week’s worth of purchases has earned him a friend and an introduction to his family. A month later, they invite Keith to their home for a meal. Their home is modest - no, less than that. It’s larger than Keith’s apartment behind Kolivan’s, but barely, and it houses three generations of a family. But their generosity is unaffected by how little they possess: they cook Keith a meal that is fit for a king.

That night, Keith lies wide awake in bed blasted by thoughts that spring from a single question: _what can I do?_ Because there are shoeless children in the streets of Nepal and they go hungry in a way that Keith, even at his worst, never had to. He plans to give the family money and donate much of what Shiro gave him to charities, but there has to be more. More of what, Keith doesn’t know, but he knows that he can do better. His world is bigger now, larger than just himself and his needs and his problems.

And because all roads lead back to Shiro, Keith thinks that together they can find the answer. And just like that, Keith sees that they have a future. A complicated, tumultuous, confusing, and downright infuriating at times future, no doubt, but theirs - to make, to build, to protect.

It’s time to go home.

_

 

A month later, a door swings open and Shiro is standing in front of Keith, a vision from his dreams.

“Hi,” Keith says.

Shiro doesn’t answer. His face is frozen in shock. No hint of welcome in his eyes. Keith panics. Oh, god. He was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

“What?” Shiro says, turned confused. 

Oops. Keith must have been mumbling aloud.

“I - “ Keith starts, but doesn’t finish. Shiro yanks him forward by his shirt and smashes their mouths together. And that’s that.

_

 

 **Postcard from Mauna Kea Summit, Hawaii. Addressed to Cuban Lance.** (because Keith is a dick and thinks it’s funny, why, Lance doesn’t know, and Lance won’t call him racist, at least not in front of his mama who had laughed when she read it and said, oh Keith, like what the fuck?)

What Tripadvisor says:

It was a beautifully clear night in January and the stars were amazing. Note that it is very cold and you really need a flashlight as they keep the Lights quite dim so as not to disturb the stargazing. 

What Keith says:

Shiro is still bitching at me because I didn’t bring a jacket, but I don’t think he means any of it and just likes to bitch for nostalgia’s sake, like it’s become our thing for him to pretend to be mad at me when I don’t have a jacket, when really he likes that he can cuddle me under his stupidly oversized coat and he is filthy under that thing. Apparently, stars make him horny. God, I hope his arm wasn’t too loud. There were children around! The man is shameless.

What Shiro says:

None of what Keith has written is true. Except for the fact that he didn’t bring a jacket. And that I’m shameless. Because I have nothing, absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

_

 

Mauna Kea Summit, Hawaii  
January (after a two-year stint in Nepal)

Keith is glad for the dark. His face is insanely hot, but no one who looks their way will be able to tell that he's flushed, which Keith is certain would give away exactly what they were doing. There’s no way to hide utterly wrecked and _freshly fucked_ , which he would otherwise be broadcasting so obviously. Damn Shiro and his stupid (good) metal arm. 

“I hate you,” Keith whispers.

“Do you?” Shiro says doubtfully, then reinserts a finger inside Keith.

“Again?” Keith gasps.

“Why not?” Shiro murmurs against his ear. He kisses Keith sweetly. “We have all night.”

And the rest of their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's done! My brief foray back into fanfic has been equal parts enjoyable and painful. Parts of this fic were excruciating to write at times - but such is writing. Thank you all who have kindly left kudos and comments, or bookmarked this fic. You kept me fueled from chapter to chapter and especially when I wanted to call this quits. It was supposed to be just a single chapter of smutty porn, for goodness sake!


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